Mastodawn

Daniel 🏳️‍🌈🥑Apr 4, 2023

Now at @[email protected]

When a car is repaired after a crash, the GDP goes up.

When a fruit or vegetable is grown only to be thrown out by a supermarket as food waste, the GDP goes up.

When you replace a phone that still works because of planned obsolescence, the GDP goes up.

When you throw out a perfectly good coat because it's no longer fashionable, and buy a new one in this season's style, the GDP goes up.

When a bridge has to be replaced because it wasn't built right, the GDP goes up.

When a piece of packaging is manufactured only to be thrown away straight away, the GDP goes up.

When a site needs to be decontaminated because chemicals weren't stored correctly, the GDP goes up.

In each case, society has no more usable wealth than it would have had if the car didn't crash, the vegetable wasn't grown, the phone wasn't replaced, the old coat was still being worn, there was less packaging, or the chemicals were stored correctly. Yet the GDP goes up.

Meanwhile, most of the wealth that is generated ends up in the top one percent's pockets.

The truth is that GDP isn't a useful measurement. It's just a convenient one.

#economics #politics #gdp #auspol #ukpol

Wade Roberts Feb 10, 2023

@ajsadauskas economics is the religion that occupies the void in society vacated after the enlightenment.

Imaginary concepts conjured by the ruling class, protected from scrutiny, and imposed upon the masses.

Mythology was replaced with selective mathematics and finance.

Cathedrals replaced with banks.

Churches replaced with financial institutions.

God replaced with GDP.

Denis Buckley Feb 11, 2023

@waderoberts @ajsadauskas
There are other kinds of economics besides neoliberal dogma.
FDR, for all his faults, practiced an intuitive, 'bottom up', economics as far as he could, encumbered by Southern Democrats' racist opposition.
Today there is Modern Monetary Theory exploring ways an economy can work for the benefit of ALL the population. But it's difficult effecting a paradigm shift when so many rich, powerful people's wealth and power flow from neoliberalism.

WilhelmVonW Feb 11, 2023

@ajsadauskas And here was me all this time, thinking it was Literary Criticism. But you’re right! It’s Economics.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca Feb 11, 2023

@waderoberts @ajsadauskas
One imaginary idol replacing another. In the US, GDP has actually coopted god. Evangelical christians have been indoctrinated to believe that Jesus approved of capitalism...Quite a clever mass manipulation move.

@waderoberts @ajsadauskas

GDP is just a ritual associated with tracking sacrifices.

The real god in question here is Capital. The religion is #capitalism.

Daniel Lakeland Feb 10, 2023

@ajsadauskas
GDP is useful, but highly flawed. I'd certainly want to live in a country with $50000 GDP/Capita over one with $1000. But it's entirely possible for a country with $20000 to be a generally better place to live than that $50000 example.

Kevin Russell Feb 10, 2023

@dlakelan @ajsadauskas

Finland is a place filled with joyous children and the happiest population on earth. It does not have the US GDP.

Daniel Lakeland Feb 11, 2023

@kevinrns @ajsadauskas

Indeed, a very good example. There's no question that GDP of a country needs to be high enough that there are resources for people to have shelter, food, clothing, education, basic healthcare, transportation, etc... but once you've passed that barrier, how we allocate our income and what kinds of policies there are and who is able to capture the income through monopoly and etc matters more.

Wade Roberts Feb 10, 2023

@dlakelan @ajsadauskas GDP can be a useful measurement tool, but should never be a predominant, let alone exclusive, aspiration or target.

No measure, especially myopically narrow instances like GDP, should be positioned as protected thought-terminating clichés.

And it should absolutely never be tolerated as a metering sphincter.

Ben Curthoys Feb 10, 2023

@ajsadauskas The traditional example is a broken window.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Parable of the broken window - Wikipedia

Steve Feb 10, 2023

@bencurthoys @ajsadauskas
To add a small point to the "broken window" metaphor, if the windows never broke, people would still want windows for new construction, which would be better for everyone, including the glazier.

(The exception is that new construction leads the sprawl, but that's getting pretty far away from the criticism of GDP.)

Kathleen Fuller, PhD Feb 10, 2023

@ajsadauskas The Genuine Progress Index is a better measure. It counters the fact that the US (and most other economies) are based on cheap, free, or enslaved labor. https://on.mentza.com/circles/53223

Download Mentza - 20 Min live audio chats

Thu 09 Feb, 19:30 IST with Kathleen Fuller

Stoneface Vimes Feb 10, 2023

@ajsadauskas in the eighties I heard the expression "taking in each others washing". The idea that we all set up laundries, and then wash each others clothes. We all charge a fee to do it, and pay a fee to have our own washing done. But there's no actual benefit because it just sends it round and round in circles.

rag. Gustavino Bevilacqua Feb 10, 2023

👍 👍 👍 👍

I totally agree!

AndyDearden Feb 10, 2023

@ajsadauskas #DoughnutEconomics now!

Wolfgang Feist Feb 10, 2023

That is all true. And there are much more examples of similar and even worse cases.

GDP is the wrong measure for prosperity.

But caution: It's also not just the "opposite of...", still, in many cases, there are benefits

The fact: We'll have to take a closer look, what it is, what is growing. Examples: almost no doubt, that

- bike lanes
- wind generators
- PV-installation
- building insulation

should grow, and grow fast.

Voron Feb 10, 2023

@ajsadauskas also : “productivity is up!” = workers are producing more for less pay/compensation 🤷‍♂️

Topher Belknap Feb 10, 2023

@ajsadauskas It isn't used because it is convenient, it is used, *because* (as you say) the wealth all ends up in the top 1% pockets.

Fusselwurm Feb 10, 2023

@ajsadauskas TL;DR: GDP shows how fast the treadmill runs , not how well-off the occupants are

Walt Campbell Feb 10, 2023

This is a really effective GDP takedown. This isn't the first time I've heard this argument, but your version packs a punch!

Jack of all trades Feb 10, 2023

@ajsadauskas It's not even that convenient or useful for most of society.

Things that are reflected in GDP:

- producing and then burning a luxury item that nobody bought
- buying food that will spoil in your refrigerator
- accidently clicking on an annoying online ad
- paying a nanny to take care of your child
- buying a new wedding dress
- charging rent

Jack of all trades Feb 10, 2023

For comparison, things that do not affect the GDP:

- taking a walk in a forest
- reading a book
- playing a board game with your friend
- comforting your child
- cleaning house of your elderly parent
- helping your neighbour fix their computer
- giving birth at home
- visiting a grave
- telling your coworker a joke
- fixing up a wedding dress that your mother wore
- making love to your partner
- letting your friend sleep on the couch for a few days

Oli Feb 10, 2023

@jackofalltrades @ajsadauskas - helping your neighbour fix their computer is good for the environment, good for your neighbour and good in many other ways
However it Does affect GDP, it reduces it -
one less computer sold,
one less bit of e-waste -
one less delivery vehicle or trip to the store
It is an act of economic terrorism Suella will be looking at this closely

Datarainbow Privacy Assistant✅Feb 10, 2023

@ajsadauskas a society built on consumption. Consumption of goods and services and worst of all, consumption of natural resources irremediably destroying the environment.

Kevin Russell Feb 10, 2023

Yep.

When chemicals in your environment send your mother to hospital with brain cancer, the GDP goes up.

Economists have to learn how to subrtract.

#Economists #EconomistsHaveToLearnHowToSubrtract.
#learn #ToSubrtract.

Martha Howell Apr 4, 2023

@kevinrns @ajsadauskas
It goes up even further when you don't have enough family leave to care for her. Productivity!

Cornelius Traas Feb 10, 2023

@ajsadauskas And if you repair an old pair of shoes instead of buying new pair, or grow some vegetables in your garden instead of buying them, or cycle instead of driving, the GDP is lower. It is an absolute disgrace that GDP is used as a measure of economy.

RAMΞNJVNKIΞ🍜Feb 10, 2023

@ajsadauskas Someone told me the proper term for it once but I forget what it is, but economic health really SHOULD be measured by how much money churns within society.

As in, how many times a dollar (or whatever) circulates around and how quickly.

The hoarding of wealth is useless to 99% of society, money constantly churning through everyone, means everyone is earning and spending and would be a much better metric, and still meets the whole "capitalism need to buy/sell."

Aaron Apr 4, 2023

@RamenJunkie @ajsadauskas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money

Velocity of money - Wikipedia

Aaron Apr 4, 2023

@RamenJunkie @ajsadauskas It can be argued that the sudden drop in the velocity of money had a major hand in the severe impact of the Great Depression on the average person. Suddenly money wasn't flowing by, so there was nothing to temporarily siphon off for local employment and consumer purchases. Often this is chalked up to a drop in the money supply, but I think the mechanism of action of reduced money supply is reduced money flow.

Aaron Apr 4, 2023

@RamenJunkie @ajsadauskas Interestingly, a common approach to mitigate the effects of reduced access to money was to pool it locally in a smaller sub-economy. It's possible to write IOUs with people you trust, barter instead of purchasing, or, in a more organized approach, establish a cooperative bank (credit union) that enhances mutual aid within a community.

Aaron Apr 4, 2023

@RamenJunkie @ajsadauskas I think that if more businesses were cooperatives, we would see a major decrease in inequality, and a major improvement in economic stability thanks to monetary flow being mostly localized within a community.

Now at @[email protected]Apr 5, 2023

@hosford42 @RamenJunkie I definitely agree that co-operatives and credit unions are a great way to reduce inequality.

For anyone reading this who isn't familiar with co-ops, there's broadly four different kinds: consumers co-operatives (where the members are the customers of the co-op), workers co-operatives (owned by workers) and farmers or producers co-ops (where the people who supply the raw materials own the co-op).

The big advantage is that there's no shareholders or investors creaming profits off the top.

Any surplus funds are either reinvested, or (depending on what type of co-op it is) are returned to the customers (so they effectively buy the products at cost price), the workers, or the farmers (so they get the full value of the products they create).

The best known example of a consumer co-op is the Cooperative Group in the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co-operative_Group ). It was founded by a group of coal miners called the Rochdale Pioneers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Society_of_Equitable_Pioneers ) back in 1844, and is still going strong nearly 180 years later!

#coop #cooperative #ConsumerCooperative #RochdalePioneers #economics

The Co-operative Group - Wikipedia

Aaron Apr 5, 2023

@ajsadauskas @RamenJunkie (Pretty sure they are not coal miners anymore. They have definitely branched out, at the least.)

Now at @[email protected]Apr 5, 2023

@hosford42 @RamenJunkie LoL you're quite correct they've well moved past just serving coal miners.

Christian Roselund Apr 5, 2023

@ajsadauskas @hosford42 @RamenJunkie Don't forget Spain's Mondragon, which is a federation of worker-owned co-ops that even make solar panel manufacturing equipment. https://www.mondragon-assembly.com/

Now at @[email protected]Apr 5, 2023

@croselund @hosford42 @RamenJunkie Mondragon in Spain is a fantastic example of worker-owned co-operatives.

And you also raise a really important point about federations of co-operatives, because that's where the economy-transforming magic really starts to happen.

For the uninitiated, just as a group of farmers, consumers, or workers can form a co-operative, likewise a group of co-operatives can form a co-operative.

In some cases, these co-operatives of co-operatives, known as co-operative federations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_federation), can provide shared services or advocacy on behalf of the member co-ops.

More interestingly, they can also become co-operative wholesale societies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-operative_wholesale_society ) and provide group buying services for member co-ops, and even start manufacturing for themselves.

Taken to its natural limit, the term for an economy where all production is managed through co-operatives is called a "Co-operative Commonwealth".

For people interested in learning more, a good starting point is the rundown on Wikipedia about Cooperative Economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-operative_economics and Cooperative Federalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_federalism_(economics).

#Economy #Economics #Coop #Cooperative #Cooperatives #Business #Mondragon #RochdalePioneers #Socialism #Anarchism #Capitalism

Cooperative federation - Wikipedia

Aaron Apr 6, 2023

@Radical_EgoCom

This is reminiscent, to me, of what you were saying about bottom-up governance. A step in the right direction? Better than nothing?

Aaron Apr 6, 2023

@Radical_EgoCom From my own perspective, this seems like a violence-free path to the vision you were describing, which makes me much more inclined to be on board.

@ajsadauskas I’m no economist, but when the guy that developed the first modern system for measuring GDP (Kuznets) says it’s not a good measure, it might be time to throw it out and start over.

Kuznets in 1962:
“Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between costs and returns, and between the short and long run. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what and for what.”

Time for Gross National Happiness instead?

#GrossNationalHappiness #GDP #NotAnEconomist

TweetingTechno Feb 11, 2023

@ajsadauskas And Simon Kuznets, who invented the measure, agreed with you. https://gnhusa.org/gpi/the-case-against-gdp-made-by-its-own-creator/

Dogzilla Feb 11, 2023

@ajsadauskas Years ago, there was a speech by Robert Kennedy that addressed this. I forgot the details, it’s been a while, but it’s worth looking up.

Our economic system requires about 5% unemployment. Yet those unemployed are treated as worthless.

Douglas Michael Massing Feb 11, 2023

@dogzilla @ajsadauskas
I remember Gary Snyder, back in the 70s, making a kind of epigram of this argument, to the effect that every plane crash increases the GDP.

Ten Pound Auspol Feb 11, 2023

@T2DRemission @dogzilla @ajsadauskas The logic of the military-industrial complex. War is good for business (and, therefore, GDP)

msgbi Feb 11, 2023

@ajsadauskas @aloa5 @Ginger149 @charles_ex

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE Feb 11, 2023

@ajsadauskas I am told (by an academic in the business) that they all know this, but the problem is that "GDP" is an internationally defined metric, and despite decades of politicking nobody has found a route to getting international agreement on a replacement.

Generation Zen Feb 11, 2023

@ajsadauskas stonks mate

David Palk#RejoinEU 💖🇪🇺🕊🌈Feb 11, 2023

@ajsadauskas The con con in the eCON ✊🏽

TAI Feb 11, 2023

@ajsadauskas Don't know about you, but I find it very suspicious that the insane drive in home prices is left out as a contributor to inflation. Seems to fit your example perfectly. No extra value added for the public. Quite the contrary, but for the lender that same assets value went through the roof.

TAI Feb 11, 2023

@ajsadauskas We have no say in what the metrics are and the media serves those that benefit most. Common sense metric would be measuring the prosperity of all, not what benefits the few. But they don't want light shed on that scenario.

Incident Creator ❎Feb 11, 2023

@ajsadauskas GDP is a useful statistic, but certainly isn't the holy be all and end all that it is made out to be by those who coincidentally find that it's a statistic that suits their agenda.

Mazza Feb 12, 2023

@ajsadauskas Totally agree. The GDP is a Grossly Deceitful Parameter by which to judge ‘progress’ or the state of a society. It does not in anyway represent what is true economic wealth - or what is valuable in a society - or the ‘success’ of that society for all of its people!

Mark Gardner Feb 15, 2023

@ajsadauskas @barubary The fallacy was identified over 170 years ago by #economist Frédéric #Bastiat as “the parable of the broken window” in “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen”: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays_on_Political_Economy/That_Which_Is_Seen,_and_That_Which_Is_Not_Seen#The_Broken_Window

Henry #Hazlitt expanded on this in his classic “#Economics in One Lesson” (1946), a fantastic and easily-digestible book that traces the long-term consequences of common economic beliefs. You can download it for free: https://fee.org/resources/economics-in-one-lesson/

Essays on Political Economy/That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen - Wikisource, the free online library

Sebiturbo Feb 17, 2023

@ajsadauskas
Translation to German. Gross domestic product = das Bruttoinlandsprodukt

Prof Dr Richard S.J. Tol MAE Feb 17, 2023

@ajsadauskas GDP is the appropriate measure for economic activity.

If you want to measure the things you mention, you should use NDP and Theil.

Extinction (our fate)Feb 18, 2023

@ajsadauskas I think a big point missed in the comments is that GDP, and money in general, is a poor indicator of the sustainability of a people or a way of life. When a community is poisoned, when wildlife is trampled, when suburbs replace factory farms, chemical agriculture and extractive mining, when ocean species are eradicated by overfishing, poisoning, overheating, acidification and microplastics suffuse every ecosystem, there will be no people, and no way of life that anyone would want. When pollinators and their habitat are destroyed. When greed and corruption are rewarded by money and power, and externalities create climate change and extinctions, what will be left?

Robert Weißgraeber🇪🇺Apr 1, 2023

@ajsadauskas wars also drive GDP up

The Alchemist Apr 4, 2023

@ajsadauskas I agree. I often think the best metric would be what the bottom 10 percent earn.

Alex C has moved Apr 4, 2023

@ajsadauskas @Jessica

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Parable of the broken window - Wikipedia

Dazz Knowles Apr 5, 2023

@ajsadauskas it’s more like the top 0.01% (1% is still a lot of people), but otherwise you’re spot on.